


Yours, Ever

by LucyLovecraft



Category: Ogniem i Mieczem | With Fire and Sword (1999), Trylogia | The Trilogy - Henryk Sienkiewicz
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Epistolary, F/M, Letters, Love Letters, M/M, Multi, OT3, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 16:18:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14048103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyLovecraft/pseuds/LucyLovecraft
Summary: A collection of letters from 17th-century Poland preserves a record of three individuals whose love stood the test of time.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> OT3 epistolary fic with a faux-academic framing device, because I am a nerd.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Editor’s preface to "Love on the Borderlands: An Appreciation of the 'Heleniad' Letters in Sociopolitical Context" (1999, revised edition).

Epistolary sources, particularly letters of a personal nature, are of tremendous value to the historian. While public and official documents give us insight into the political context of the past, and journals or memoirs usually show how their authors wished to be seen, private correspondence more nearly reveals individuals as they truly were. One may lie to oneself or to posterity in a journal or autobiography, but it is far less easy to dissemble to a loved one or relative who has known one for many years.

Letters, therefore, provide a window through which we may at times glimpse the lives of those long dead and find them to be even as we are today: sometimes kind, sometimes cruel, sometimes wise, sometimes foolish, but always entirely human.  
  
Sadly, very few private letters withstand the passage of time. The quasi-political correspondence of rulers and nobles was sometimes preserved by court clerks for later reference, but personal letters (though no doubt treasured by those who received them) were seldom actively preserved in the same way.  
  
Sometimes, however, chance circumstance and serendipity present the historian with rare gifts.

For those with an interest in the early-modern period in Polish history, the documents popularly known as the Heleniad Letters (sometimes the _"_ _Epistolia Helenae"_ ) are just such a gift. These letters were discovered in 1884 in a hidden compartment of a 17th-century chest (originally a _muqaddimah_ of Ottoman design) in the basement of a former nunnery in Gmina Baligród. The Heleniad Letters are so called as they appear to have been preserved by one of the three letter-writers, Princess Helena Skrzetuska (née Kurcewiczówna), a minor noblewoman of the mid-17 th century. It appears from the letters that she and the other two persons concerned met on the eve of the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648–1657), and that their experiences during that violent upheaval contributed to the unique relationship between them.

The letters are remarkable in many ways. They consist of a correspondence between the Princess Helena; her husband, Pan Jan Skrzetuski, a nobleman and hussar lieutenant in the service of Prince Jeremi Wiśniowiecki; and an _ataman_ of the Zaparozhian Cossacks named Jurko Bohun. That the princess and the Cossack and were literate at all was highly unusual given the period and the nature of life on the frontier of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Indeed, it is clear that Jurko Bohun was taught to write by the other two (primarily the princess, given similarities in style and spelling errors).  
  
Yet most striking of all is the fact that the writers appear to have lived together in what we would today term a polyamorous relationship. Despite what was clearly initially a highly fraught and at times overtly antagonistic relationship between the Cossack and the other two during the Uprising, the letters preserve a record of candid affection spanning many years. The very existence of the _complete_ correspondence is a testament to this affection, as most of the letters must necessarily have been received while far from home, and had to be preserved through war and long travels in order to be brought home again.  
  
The personalities of the three writers are wonderfully present in their own distinct styles, and the particular nature of their polyamory allows us what may be considered multiple attestation to the various quirks and traits of each individual. These letters are therefore not only useful as a resource for those with an interest in the history of Poland in the mid-17 th century but, like other great historical epistolary records, as means by which we may see our own lives and loves reflected in a distant mirror.

J.H. Szeliga, Ph.D.  
SWPS Uniwersytet Humanistycznospołeczny  
Warsaw, 1999


	2. From Jan, to Helena and Jurko

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jan writes home to his loved ones and tries (and fails) not to be homesick. Flowery epistolary language abounds.

To Helena Skrzetuska and Jurko Bohun:  
  
My dearest loves,  
  
I pray God this finds you both well, as it leaves me.  
  
All is very busy with us here in camp, and were it not for the great haste with which we must return to Lubnie, I should certainly ride off from my company and be my own messenger. Yet we will soon be marching back to to celebrate the prince’s birthday with all the court, and I am sorry to say I cannot get away, though it feels as though my heart might take wing at any moment to fly home to you.  
  
The prince’s birthday celebration seems likely to be a wondrous spectacle. My husaria and the other soldiery are to make a grand procession through the town, and there will be a great feast and dancing, as well as fireworks. Though I know neither of you would take much pleasure in the constant intrigues and social sparring that make up so much of court life, I find I still wish that you could be there. I look forward to the celebrations, particularly the fireworks which shall certainly be magnificent: great bursts of colour like flaming flowers that hang and sparkle in the air. But I look forward with far more eagerness to the day I may return home to those two whom my heart loves best in all the world.  
  
For all the beauty and glamour of court, there is no glittering demoiselle in the court who is half so lovely as Helena as she laughs and dances barefoot before the hearth in homespun. And though there is many a fine knight in Jeremi’s ranks, I have never yet seen one whose wild grace so enthralls me as my Jurko’s does. I will not importune you with all my doubts and fears, but I am near sick to death with anxiety about the baby, and it breaks my heart to think I must in all likelihood miss the birth. Oh, you will laugh at me, my loves, but even to write these lines so fills my heart with longing to see the both of you that I am near to weeping over my own sorry scribblings.  
   
But now I hear that we must make ready to leave at once, so I must wipe my tears and give this at once to Rzędzian, so that it will reach you with all haste.  
  
God in his mercy keep you both in health, happiness, and safety until I return. Write as often as you can, my loves. It makes the miles between us seem less.  
  
Faithfully yours,  
Pan Jan Skrzetuski

  
_Postscriptum:_  
  
Helena, sweetest angel of my soul, forgive me for being anxious, but I beg that you will take care of yourself and avoid any undue exertion or risk. Listen to the wise woman at the village, and if you have any concerns promise me you will spare no expense or effort to come to Lubnie where the prince’s physician will surely take the greatest care of you, my darling love. I know I am fretting like a nervous young father in a comedic play, but I know also that my dear Helena will forgive her poor husband his foolishness.    
  
Jurko, my wild heart, please try to keep our Helena from overworking herself. And I pray that you, too, will keep well, though I know you must long to be away on the first spring raids. I know also that you will be much overtaxed between worrying over our own dear Helena and this year’s foals, but pray you that you give into no undue choler and spare the grooms, who mean no ill.  
  
My heart shall know no true joy until I see you again, my dear ones.  
-J.S.


	3. From Helena, To Jan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first of two letters Jan receives from home.

Dear sweete Jan,

My dearest brave knight,  
  
  
I pray for you every morning, noon, and nite. You are ever in my thoughts. Every time the babbie kicks I think it must be a boy who will be just like you, and I thank God and the Blessed Virgin to think that, even thogh you are far away, I carrie some part of you beneath my heart.  
  
Jurko is very restless as you might imagine. The spring is in his bloode and he cannot help himself but must be ridyng out across the fields and to the edges of the woodes and beyond. I am gladde of it for I, too, am restless: it has been such a fine Spring that I cannot really stay indoors. I think it is good for the babbie, and I know I feel much better for all the sun and warmth and the smell of all the flouers opening. The cherrie and apple trees are full of blossoms and I have inclosed one that Jurko placed in my hair the other day so you will remember us both, and think of us thinkyng of you, as I know you do.  
  
The court sounds very glamorus, and were you any man but my own true Jan, I am sure I would be afraid that some lady or knight would catch your eye and you might forget us, though I know this could nevver be so. How far away you are! I wish I could be there with you, but know how silly I should look at court and I fear I would embarrass you terriblye.  
  
I should not say this to any but you, my sweete Jan, but you cannot imagine how unlovely I feel these days! Jurko seems not to notice, but he is so blinde betimes that if I grew another head he shoulde still tell me I outshine the sunn, as he does. I do not look like the sunn, but like a fat moon rolling throu the sky. I am not so pregnant yett that I cannot ride and see to the estate, but my back hurts, and I feel like pregnant mare clomping heavely about the house. Yet all is very well with me, as I hope it is with you.  
  
Ha! The babbie has kicked again, as he is no dout thinking of his father, too.  
  
The spring plantyng carries on a pace, and I think we shall have all the southren field planted before the full moon. Nikolai also says that the new millstone will arrive well before summer, so do not worry on that account. The first of the lamms have been born, and I feel no-thing but sympathy for those ewes who have not yet given birth; we all are very slow and ungainlye!  
  
I do not meen to waste parchment like this but it seems as though in writing you a hundredd things I wish to say crowd about my heart so I can hardlye write at all. I do not wish to be selfysh but it felt as though you took halfe my heart when you rode away, and though I know you keep it safe, I wish that both it and you were back, the one in my breast and the otheyr upon it. God will forgive me for wishing you gone fromm your duty, I know.

  
For now I must say fare-well, but I miss you so, and hope you will come home to us soon,  
  
Yours, forever and ever, with all my heart and soul and my love too,  
  
God and the Virgin and all the Saiyntes guard and keep you my love and husband,  
  
Yours, loving and faithfully, ~~all ways,~~ ~~allways,~~ always,  
  
Your wife,  
  
Love,  
  
Helena


	4. From Jurko, To Jan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second of two letters Jan receives from home.

My Jan,

  
We were very happye to recieve your lettir. We miss you terribbly, and though Helena is as brave and beautyfull as a queene, your lettres are an even greater comforte to herr as they are to me. We hardlye do anything but speake of you, as if doing so might summon you up like a spyryt, so we might miss you less. The bed seems too empty without you, and so too does the house, the yard, the stables—everything lacks for you so we hardlei know how to bear it. But do not thynk that we are too sad: Helena and I ride out everee day to see the Spryngtime, and you would be glad to see how beutiful she is with the blossums in her hair and herr hand on her belly where the childe is.  
  
Oh Jan, how we miss you. When we ride out we lauff and say that we should ride and keep ridyinge untill we come to Lubnie so we can see you againe.  
  
But we are well, and Helena is so like a flowr in bloom that you should have no feer for herr at all. Jan, I wish you could see herr as she is now. I do not thynk she has ever beeen so loveliy.  
  
And she is so strong that, as afrayd as I am for herr, the wise woman says I am a fool for it. Helena thinkes the childe will be a sonn, and you musst wryte to stop herr from nameing it for me as I know is herr certiyn plan, for my name is too coars for any childe of Helena’s and yours, and I do not mynd it. The childe shuld have a new name, for wether itt is a sonn or dottir the childe will be something new and beautyfull be-cause it will be Helena’s and yours but when I tell Helena this she onlee lauffs and tells me I am sweete which is provoking.  
  
The grooms are lazee and do not have the sense Godde gave a gnat.  
  
Fly back to your nest as as soon as you cann. Spryngtime passes but we have none withoutt you.

  
Your  
Jurko

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Bohun will eventually have it explained to him that you're supposed to write "yours" at the end of letters, not "your". He will, however, ignore this advice his entire life, because he found "your" to be more accurate.


End file.
